Oh, yays! I received a copy of Joan Dunayer’s Animal Equality: Language and Liberation – along with a grande Kong for lil’ Rennie, and a few boxes of vegan cranberry pills for my silly, womanly urinary tract (tmi?) – in the mail today. That’s me – or rather, my South Park doppelganger – holding a copy of the book and frowning (about to scold someone, somewhere, no doubt) – up above. South Park Kelly circa 2006 sported a kissy face, but no more. (Who’s got time to make love when there’s a war raging out there!?)

Focusing on language and animal liberation, as the subtitle suggests, the book

Contrasting evolutionary reality with popular notions of human uniqueness and superiority, Animal Equality discredits the term “lower animals.” Compelling evidence of nonhuman thought and emotion debunks language that characterizes other animals as unreasoning or insensitive.

[…] As I mentioned previously, the book concludes with suggestions for improvement, including a list of problematic terms and possible alternatives, the use of which can help combat the speciesism embedded deep within our language. No doubt, readers will be familiar with many of the speciesist terms identified by Dunayer: “euthanize” vs. “murder” or “kill,” “bacon” vs. “pig flesh,” “animal research” vs. “vivisection,” “it” vs. “he” or “she,” etc. The list of problem words also includes a number of terms which initially surprised me: “brutal,” “bestiality,” “humane,” “neutered,” “spayed” – the list is long. While flipping through the thesaurus, it became clear to me that I’ve quite a bit to learn. […]